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Linguistic strategies for ad hoc categorization: theoretical assessment and cross-linguistic variation

  • Caterina Mauri EMAIL logo and Andrea Sansò
Published/Copyright: July 27, 2018
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Abstract

Ad hoc categorization is the bottom-up abstraction of a category starting from concrete exemplars of the category itself. When we observe linguistic data, we find various phenomena that provide evidence for the ubiquity of such an on-line, goal-driven and context-dependent categorization in everyday communication. Beyond offering concept labels in the form of words, language indeed provides speakers with a great number of strategies to convey reference to a class by naming representative individuals. After providing a semantic and pragmatic account of ad hoc categorization in terms of indexicality, we will survey ad hoc categorization strategies in discourse and across languages: they can be syntactic (lists, general extenders, exemplifying constructions), morphological (heterogeneous plurals, collectives, aggregates, compounds), or in-between (reduplication). We will argue that all these strategies show a similar abstract structure consisting in a categorization trigger, that is, some prosodic, morphological or syntactic element triggering the abstractive inferential process towards the category identification, plus a linguistic expression referring to some overt category member, which is processed as the starting point for abstraction. The diachronic connections between these strategies and the pathways leading to their emergence and conventionalization also speak in favor of their unified treatment.

Abbreviations

1, 2, 3

1st, 2nd, 3rd person

2/3

form for both 2nd and 3rd person

ABL

ablative

ACC

accusative

AGT

agentive/instrumental case particle

ASS

associative

B

bare

CAUS

causative

CJEC

conjectural

CMPL

complement clause

COLL

collective

CONJ

conjunction

COP

copula

CTEMP

contemporaneous

D

deictic

DEM

demonstrative

DET

determiner

DH

downhill

DIR

directional

DS

different subject;

DST

distal

EFF

effector

F

feminine

FOC

focus marker

GEN

genitive

GUES

guess

HAB

habitual

INAN

inanimate

INDEF

indefinite

INF

infinitive

IPFV

imperfective

LOC

locative

MV

medial verb form

NEG

negation

NF

non-final verbal suffix

NOM

nominative

NSG

non-singular

NZR

nominalizer

OBJ

object

PE

personal experience evidential

PF

perfect

PL

plural

POL

polite form

POSB

possibilitive modality

POSS

possessive

PRO

pronoun

PROH

prohibitive

PROP

proprietive

PRS

present

PRT

particle

PST

past

PURP

purposive

QUOT

quotative

RED

reduplication

RES

resultative

RLS

realis

SE

stem extender

SG

singular

SIM

simulative

SLEV

same topographic level

SS

same subject

STAT

stative

TOP

topic marker.

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Published Online: 2018-07-27
Published in Print: 2018-07-26

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